He had now abandoned Alice in Putney.

And a mysterious demon seized him and gripped him, and sought to pull him back in the direction of the simplicity of Putney, and struggled with him fiercely, and made him writhe and shrink before the brilliant phenomena of London's centre, and indeed almost pitched him out of the car and set him running as hard as legs would carry to Putney.

It was the demon which we call habit.

He would have given a picture to be in Putney, instead of swimming past Hyde Park Corner to the accompaniment of Mr.Oxford's amiable and deferential and tactful conversation.
However, his other demon, shyness, kept him from imperiously stopping the car.
The car stopped itself in Bond Street, in front of a building with a wide archway, and the symbol of empire floating largely over its roof.
Placards said that admission through the archway was a shilling; but Mr.
Oxford, bearing Priam's latest picture as though it had cost fifty thousand instead of five hundred pounds, went straight into the place without paying, and Priam accepted his impressive invitation to follow.
Aged military veterans whose breasts carried a row of medals saluted Mr.
Oxford as he entered, and, within the penetralia, beings in silk hats as faultless as Mr.Oxford's raised those hats to Mr.Oxford, who did not raise his in reply.

Merely nodded, Napoleonically! His demeanour had greatly changed.